Recommender control system, apparatus, method and related aspects

ABSTRACT

User interaction data is heuristically processed to determine its usefulness to a remote recommender system. The data is ranked according it its likely ability to indicate a user preference towards a particular content item. The amount of data sent to the recommender system can then be limited to data records falling in a predetermined range of usefulness. A controller may be provided to determine what range is necessary so that the minimum amount of training data is provided to the recommender system to drive the recommender system&#39;s performance towards a set level.

This application is the U.S. national phase of International ApplicationNo. PCT/GB2013/000080, filed 27 Feb. 2013, which designated the U.S. andclaims priority to EP Application No. 12250044.0, filed 29 Feb. 2012,the entire contents of each of which are hereby incorporated byreference.

The present invention relates to a recommender control system,apparatus, method and related aspects. In particular, but notexclusively, to a control system for a recommender configured to provideaccurate, up-to-date predictions of user preferences towards productswithin a large set, for example, within a Video on Demand catalogue.

BACKGROUND

Recommender systems are well-known in the art and provide personalizedlists of recommended consumable items to users. The lists are generatedon an individual basis and attempt to predict individual user interesttowards the items listed, for example, purchasing the item and/orviewing it on a client device.

Known recommender systems provide either content-based recommendationsin which a user is recommended items similar to the ones a user haspreferred in the past; or collaborative filtering recommendations inwhich a user is recommended items that people with similar tastes andpreferences have liked in the past, or adopt a hybrid approach whichcombines collaborative filtering and content-based methods.Recommendations are usually evaluated on the basis of a user probablyliking/disliking an item, or on the basis of a potential rating that theuser may assign to that item, or on a relative rating in which eachuser's potential liking is compared to the ranking of other items. Anintroduction to recommender systems can be found in Adomavicius, G., andTuzhilin in “A. Towards the Next Generation of Recommender Systems: ASurvey of the State-of-the-Art and Possible Extensions”, IEEE TKDE(2005) which provides a comprehensive overview of the state of the artin recommender algorithms, the contents of which are hereby incorporatedby reference.

Factors such as a) the continuous influx of new data about userbehaviour, b) the number of new users that need recommendations, c)inconstancies in the amount of user behaviour data provided to therecommender and d) changes in the preferences of users over time, allcontribute to a dynamically changing recommender system operatingenvironment. Recommender systems which operate in such environments arepreferably therefore retrained from time to time (or indeed quiteregularly) with fresh training data which comprises informationindicating what user's actual current preferences are so as to enablerecommender systems in such dynamic environments to adapt to thechanging conditions.

Not all consumable items however are consumed in a way which allows apreference to be expressed. For example, broadcast television channelsusually do not provide viewers with an opportunity to indicate whetherthey liked a particular television programme or not. Even if anopportunity is given to express an opinion for an item, not all usersmay choose to provide an indication of their preference. The “degree” ofpreference may or may not be captured accurately overall as differentusers may indicate their preferences on scales of various degrees ofconservatism, if a scale of 0 to 10, say, is provided rather than “like”or “dislike”. In contrast, it is often possible to configure web-portalswhich provide Video-On-Demand (VoD) services to capture feedback fromusers who have downloaded and watched a video.

Moreover, providing data to re-train a recommender system from a hugenumber of users presents challenges in that it takes up systemresources. For example, transferring user preference information from alarge number of client devices takes up bandwidth within thecommunications network connecting the client devices to the recommendersystem. Moreover, training activities have a high computational cost forthe recommender system. Thus the need to retrain needs to be balancedagainst the quality of recommendations being provided.

Recommender systems known in the art are limited in the way that theperformance of the recommender is capable of being controlled externallyby third parties. Parekh, S., Gandhi, N., Hellerstein, J., Tilbury, D.,Jayram, T., and Bigus, J., describe the principles of control theory intheir paper “Using Control Theory to Achieve Service Level Objectives InPerformance Management”, published in Real Time Systems (2002). Morespecifically, Zanardi, V., and Capra, L., in “Dynamic updating of onlinerecommender systems via feed-forward controllers”, published in the InProc. of SEAMS (2011), describe using control theory to model thebehaviour of software systems. They provide a set of analytical toolsthat can predict with high accuracy the behaviour of a real system inthe context of monitoring system growth and to control whether thesystem needs to perform an update. Another publication addressingrecommender control is by Meng, K., Wang, Y., Zhang, X., Xiao, X. C.,and du Zhang, G., entitled “Control theory based rating recommendationfor reputation systems. In Proc. of ICNSC (2006)”.

In addition, it is known for set-top boxes to include functionality tostore data about the usage of the set-top box (e.g. log data, use data,etc.)—see for example WO 00/11869; it is further known to performpre-processing of that data to remove clearly irrelevant data (e.g.channel selection data that is associated with “channel hopping” is notuseful for giving information about a user's viewing preferences—see US2002/083451 as an example of this). Finally, it is also known forset-top boxes to perform some processing internally before responding toa request for information. In particular, WO 2004/047445 describes aset-tap box which has a user privacy policy which it consults beforegiving user preference data to a requesting server, and it selects(and/or modifies in some way—e.g. to anonymise) the information which itprovides to the server based on the stored user privacy policy to ensurethat the provided information does not contravene the privacy policy.

SUMMARY STATEMENTS OF INVENTION

The aspects and embodiments of the invention are as set out in theaccompanying independent and dependent claims respectively which may becombined with each other in any manner apparent to one of ordinary skillin the art.

User interaction data is ranked according to the invention according toits likely usefulness in deriving user preference information. In someinstances, the derivation of user preference information may beconsidered to provide a high level of confidence in a user “liking” thecontent item to which it relates. Some interactions may requireconsideration of other interaction data in order to determine if theyrepresent a positive user preference. This provides considerabletechnical benefits over known functionalities of set-top boxes. Inparticular, it enables a very sensible response to be made for a requestfor data from a server, where the request specifies that a certainamount of usage data is required. Regardless of the manner in which therequest is specified (e.g. requesting the “best” 20% of stored usagedata, or requesting a certain volume of data (e.g. 10 Mbytes)) anoptimum response can be given as a consequence of having ranked theusage data. Note that a finer level of granularity than just useful andnot useful is required. Indeed, the ranking of the data should just beof useful data, useless data having been already removed from the system(e.g. using techniques such as described in US 2002/083451 discussedabove). Clearly, even if not all data records are given an individualranking, but rather they, are categorized as belonging to a categoryhaving a certain ranking, then the greater the number of differentcategories the better a request for a specified amount of data can beresponded to. Thus the system will preferably have at least twodifferent categories of usefulness of data and most preferably 5 ormore. Note that a scoring system (e.g. attributing a score of saybetween 0 and 10 to each usage record) is equivalent to a categorizationsystem (where there are 11 categories—or possibly 10 categories ofuseful data and 1 category of useless data, etc.).

By having set-top boxes rank their internal usage data, and by providingthem with the additional functionality of selecting a specified amountof data in an intelligent manner (i.e. providing only the most usefuldata up to the specified amount), it enables an effective and efficientimplementation of a system which dynamically modifies the amount ofusage data used in a recommendation system, in order to use only anoptimum amount. Optimum here may, for example, refer to an idea thatthere is a point at which increased amount of training data in the formof usage data does not materially increase the usefulness ofrecommendations provided by the system whilst costing more in terms ofresources for collecting and processing that additional usage data, orit may even be that in some systems increased usage data beyond an,optimum amount actually (and surprisingly) worsens the quality of therecommendations provided by the system. In either case, the presentinvention helps to provide an efficient mechanism for obtaining only anoptimum amount of such data (whatever optimum means in the system inquestion).

Note that although the preferred embodiments, which are described indetail below are particularly concerned with providing recommendationsto users about items of audio-visual media (e.g. television programmes,films, sports broadcasts, etc.) via a set-top box enabling viewers toaccess certain media features in addition to those accessible via anormal television (e.g. video on demand services via an internetconnection, etc.), the invention is capable of exploitation in any fieldof endeavour where recommendations can be provided to users based onusage information which a client device has access to and which can berequested from the client device by a remote server which processes theinformation in order to generate recommendations. As such the presentapplication will use all of the following terms somewhat interchangeablythroughout, namely a set-top box, a media delivery control device and aclient-device, the last of which is intended to be the most generic andto cover embodiments which are not associated with media delivery(especially audio-visual media delivery). In general however, thepresent invention is not concerned with general shopping typerecommendation systems in which the important user behaviour informationis already available to a remote server and thus does not need to becollected from the user device. An example of an application to whichthe present invention might therefore have application could be ingaming applications where a user's off-line) playing experience islogged in some way by the user's gaming device (e.g. a pc) and is onlylater provided to a remote server which uses the information to generategame recommendations for the user based on his playing, behaviour, etc.Numerous other examples will occur to persons skilled in the art.

In practice, the likely usefulness of the user interaction data islikely to depend on the context of the interaction event(s) involved.Accordingly, heuristics may be used to assign a ranking to each categoryand/or each event's data record. By ranking each user interaction eventaccording to its likely usefulness in indicating a user has liked (ordisliked) the content item to which it relates, it is possible to assigna priority order to the set of user interaction data which each usagerecorder logs in a given recommender cycle. A recommender cycle is therepeatable process by which the recommender system is trained.Recommendations are calculated, and then delivered to the user,following which the user may choose to interact with them. The durationof a recommender cycle is the time interval which elapses betweenrecommendations being generated. In a typical system using a recommendercontrol system according to the invention, a recommendation cyclerepeats daily. At the end of each recommendation cycle only the mostrelevant or highest priority data records are sent to the recommendersystem to adjust its performance. The amount of data provided to therecommender system is limited in this way to comprise a number of themost relevant data records. The number of records sent is determined bythe recommender input control system's training data processor as thatwhich is just sufficient to train the recommendation system towardsproviding recommendations which comply with a predetermined referenceperformance level γ_(REF).

A recommender control system according to the embodiments of theinvention thus comprises a component located in the network and/or onclient terminals which seeks to determine the degree of likely relevanceof user interaction events for the purposes of providing a prediction ofuser preference and a component, which again may be located on theclient terminal but normally located in the network, which seeks tocontrol some aspect of the operation of the recommender system such thatfuture performance of the recommender system will tend towards thedesired recommender performance level. In theory any type of controlover the recommender system could be used for this purpose, such as, forexample the amount of processing cycles which it is allowed to consumewhen updating itself, etc. A more subtle manner of achieving suchcontrol is to vary some parameter used in the recommender system. Forexample, a popular type of recommender system at the present time useslatent semantic Models for collaborative filtering (see the well knownpaper “Semantic Models for Collaborative Filtering” by Thomas Hofmannavailable at the following url:http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/˜muresan/IR/Docs/Articles/toisHofmann2004.pdf)and a parameter which may be adjusted in such recommender systems is thenumber of latent variables (also known as latent or hidden classes,states or topics) used by the model (in which the fewer such variablesused, the less processing that is required to train the recommendersystem but the less able it is to accurately model the user'spreferences and so the lower the likely performance of the recommendersystem).

As mentioned above, although any aspect of the recommender system whichcan be controlled by the recommender control system can be used tocontrol the performance opf the recommender system in order to drive itsperformance towards a specified desired performance level (a referencelevel), a particularly preferred aspect to use for this purpose is theamount of training data supplied to the recommender system. This is anaspect of the recommender system which is easily controlled by a deviceexternal to the recommender system itself (such that the recommendersystem itself can largely be treated as a black box, the internalfunctioning of which need not be known or modified in any way);additionally, by controlling the amount of training data supplied to therecommender system, it is possible to provide the minimum amount of suchtraining data which is likely to result in a desired level ofperformance of the recommender system and thus to minimise the use ofvaluable resources such as network bandwidth, storage, etc. required toprovide the training data to the recommender system. The amount oftraining data submitted may be increased or decreased by specifying thatonly data of a certain level of ranking (in terms of likeliness ofindicating a user preference for some particular content) is submitted,and then increasing or lowering the ranking of data records and/or datacategories assigned according to their likely usefulness to therecommender system which are sent to the recommendation system so thatthe recommendations are driven towards a desired level of accuracy interms of predicting future user preferences. Alternatively, either anabsolute amount of data could be directly specified, or a threshold rankcould be altered (in a system where all records above the specifiedthreshold rank are submitted but not any records having a ranking belowthe threshold rank, etc.). Or some combination of these approaches couldbe used. The desired performance level is not necessarily one whichoffers the best recommendations for all users, but may, for example,seek to result in a consistent level of recommendations for all users.

Preferably the items being recommended by the recommender system aremedia items such as films, songs, music videos, television programmes;broadcasts of sporting events, games (e.g. cloud hosted streamed videogames), etc.

Other aspects of the present invention relate to computer programs forcausing the methods of the present invention to be carried out whenexecuted on a suitable device (e.g. a set-top box, or a server computer,etc.), and especially to media, most preferably non-transient media suchas magnetic or optical storage disks (e.g. a hard drive or a CD or DVD),or volatile or non-volatile solid state memory devices (e.g. DRAM memorychips, solid-state drives, USB thumb-drives, etc.) carrying suchprograms.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The preferred embodiments of the invention will now be described withreference to the accompanying drawings which are by way of example onlyand in which:

FIG. 1 shows schematically a recommender control system in acommunications system according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 shows schematically how a recommender system operates accordingto an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 shows schematically more detail of a usage recorder according toan embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 4 shows an event record generated by a usage recorder according toan embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 5 shows schematically how a usage recorder generates event recordsaccording to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 6 shows in more detail how a usage recorder processes event dataheuristically to provide user preference data according to an embodimentof the invention;

FIGS. 7A and 7B show schematically how performance data is generated andforwarded to the recommender system as training data according toembodiments of the invention;

FIG. 8 shows schematically the feedback loop which determines how arecommender input controller generates training data U(t) according toan embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 9 shows in more detail the internal configuration of therecommender input controller according to an embodiment of theinvention; and

FIG. 10 shows schematically how training data is provided according toan embodiment of the invention using recommendation performance feedbackfrom a recommender input controller.

The best mode of the invention as currently contemplated by theinventors will now be described with reference to the accompanyingdrawings. Those of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that theaccompanying drawings depict greatly simplified Figures and may omitfeatures for which the necessity is apparent to implement the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF PRESENT EXAMPLE EMBODIMENTS

FIG. 1 of the accompanying drawings shows a recommender input controlsystem 16 according to an embodiment of the invention implemented in adata communications system 10 comprising a number of interconnectedcomponents. Communications system 10 in this embodiment is arranged 10enable a service provider to provide a content delivery service to aplurality of client devices 22 operated by end users (only one suchclient device being shown for simplicity).

Although only one client device is shown in FIG. 1, typically a largenumber and range of different types of client devices 22 are supportedby a service platform 14 such as that shown. For example, any devicewhich is capable of providing recommendation information to a display orwhich has an integral display, such as devices configured to provideelectronic program guides (EPGs), for example, set top boxes, internetcapable televisions, mobile communications devices, personal computersetc. As shown in FIG. 1, the client device 22 includes a display 24 forpresenting information on recommendations provided by recommendationserver 18, but if the display is not integrated, information is providedvia a suitable data-interface to the display 24.

Data generated by user interaction with the client device 22 ismonitored by a usage recorder 26 component running on client device 22.The usage recorder 26 runs on the operating system of the client deviceand uses the following components: a data processor 28, input/outputdata interface 30 for receiving usage data from other components of theclient device 22 including components responsive to user input, e.g. theselection of a displayed recommendation item or content item. The usagerecorder 26 records usage data as user interaction events and storesthis data and any additional data it generates by processing userinteraction data records in data storage means 32. In the embodimentshown in FIG. 1, the usage recorder 26 comprises a computer applicationwhich shares its physical resources with the client device 22.Alternatively, as would be apparent to anyone of ordinary skill in theart, the usage recorder may be integrated as hardware in client device22, and as such may have its own independent resources. As shown, theusage recorder is configured to process recorded user interaction eventsto rank them in order of each event's likelihood of indicating a userpreference towards the content item it relates to. Alternatively, or inaddition, a process ranking user interaction records as training datamay also be performed in the network as an adjunct process todetermining the amount of training data to send to the recommendersystem 18.

As shown in FIG. 1, in the present embodiment, the amount of trainingdata is determined by a network-located recommender input control 16.This is shown in the service provider's domain where it is configured tofilter the data each client device 22 provides to re-train (or update)recommender system 18 according to what is required to adjust therecommender system's performance towards a pre-determined referencelevel of performance y_(REF). Alternatively, or in addition, anequivalent or similar filtering functionality can be provided on eachclient device, providing sufficient processing power is available, forexample, as an adjunct process to the process ranking the userinteraction records.

In FIG. 1, the recommender input controller 16 functionally includes atleast two elements: a training data processor 16 a which controls theamount of training data that is provided to the recommender system 18;and a recommendation assessment function 16 b which assesses theperformance of the recommender system 18 for each user—it does this byanalysing previous recommendations made by the recommender system 18 andusage data (e.g. indicating whether a particular recommended media itemhas been viewed by a user subsequently to it have been recommended tothe user) received from each client device. Additionally, in someembodiments (as indicated by the dotted line of 16 c in the Figure), therecommender input controller 16 may additionally include a usage dataprocessor 16 c for processing usage data received from the clientdevices to convert it into a form suitable for use by the training dataprocessor 16 a (e.g. by forming likeness records from the usage datawhich indicate whether a user is considered to have liked or disliked(or neither liked nor disliked) a particular item and possibly also thenranking the records according to how useful they are considered to befor the purposes of training the recommender system 18). Note that theusage data processing function could be performed within each clientdevice instead of at the recommender input controller 16 (see the usagedata processor function 28 in FIG. 1). Alternatively there could be someclient devices including the function and some which do not. Also,instead of all such processing being done either at the recommenderinput controller 16 or at a client device 22, it could be that someprocessing is performed at the client device (e.g. to generate likenessrecords) and some is done at the recommender input controller 16 (e.g.to rank the likeness records in terms of their likely usefulness to therecommender system 18).

Service platform 14 is provided in the same service provider controldomain 12 as the recommender input controller 16. In this embodiment,Service platform 14 is arranged to receive requests for service fromclient devices 22 and to provide information which the client devicescan display. It may also function as a head end for broadcast channelsand can forward requests for content to content server 20 for video ondemand content. Service platform 14 receives data from client devices 22and determines the timing of how this data is forwarded to therecommender input controller 16 in one embodiment of the invention.Alternatively, client devices 22 may individually forward data directlyto the recommender system if they have the appropriate processing toimplement the adjunct data filtering functionality which controls theamount of ranked training data provided based on feedback relating tothe performance of previous recommendations and the desiredrecommendation performance level y_(REF).

In practice, depending on the number of users accessing the serviceand/or their usage, and the type of preference information available,the amount of useful user interaction event data available in eachrecommendation cycle between recommendations varies, dynamically duringthe operation of the recommendation system 18. To ensure that theoptimum balance is obtained in terms of the amount of training dataprovided to adjust the recommender's performance for each user, therecommender input controller 16 shown in FIG. 1 uses a training datainput control processing function shown as training data processor 16 awhich is configured as a closed-loop controller. Feedback is provided onthe performance of previous recommendations for each respective user,from the recommendation assessor 16 b, in order to drive the recommendersystem 18 to provide recommendations for each respective user whichfollows a desired reference performance level y_(REF). The recommendersystem's performance is controlled in this way to conform as closely aspossible to a predetermined reference value y_(REF) regardless of anyexternal disturbances which change dynamics of the recommendationsystem's operation, for example, changes in the amount of preferencedata provided per user.

The recommender input controller 16 shown in FIG. 1 accordingly providesa means for a service provider (or any other party able to providey_(REF)) using a recommendation service to set a preferred performancelevel for the recommendations generated for the service being provided.The type and amount of training data provided to the recommender system18 is controlled to drive the performance of the recommender system 18towards a desired performance value, y_(REF), or to be maintained withina desired performance range. y_(REF) may not be the optimum levelachievable, but may be a level available to the majority (if not all) ofthe users of the services being offered.

The performance of recommendations is determined using the userinteraction data in the system shown in FIG. 1. Typically userinteraction data related to items is recorded by the usage recorder 26in a previous recommendation cycle i−1. This is usually a large amountof data which is preferably limited before being provided to therecommender system 18. If the data is filtered by the recommender inputcontroller 16 in a current cycle i, it is then available for use by therecommender system 18 in generating recommendations in the next cyclei+1. Note that in the present embodiment, an estimate of the performanceof recommendations (which is basically a somewhat subjective issue) isobtained indirectly from the user interaction data as is discussed ingreater detail below. However, in alternative embodiments, theperformance of recommendations could be obtained more directly by simplyasking users to rate the recommendations they have received—this wouldsimplify the process of estimating the performance of a recommendationsystem considerably but would place a possibly unwanted burden on theuser. An ideal solution probably includes elements of mining userinteraction data to obtain inferences from indirect user data as to theperformance of recommendations together with a small amount of directperformance feedback data supplied explicitly by the user.

The way the recommender input controller 16 filters training data isknown to impact the performance of the recommender system 18. In oneembodiment (see FIG. 9, described in more detail hereinbelow), therecommender input controller is internally configured to model thedynamic variation of the recommendation performance as a damped harmonicoscillator (described in more detail herein below). As such, therecommender input controller 16 a adjusts the amount of training data itprovides to drive the recommender system 18 in cycle i to providerecommendations in cycle i+1 which have a lower performance (e.g. theyare less accurate recommendations—see below for a fuller discussion ofrecommender system performance measurement) if in the i−1 cycle therecommendations for that user were determined to be above a referenceaccuracy/performance value y_(REF)), and to drive the recommendationsprovided towards an improved performance level in cycle i+1 if in cyclei−1 the recommendations were less accurate than specified by thereference accuracy value, (y_(REF)) (i.e. if the measured recommendersystem performance is below the reference performance level y_(ref)).

More information on the types of performance metric which may bemeasured for recommender systems can be found in “EvaluatingCollaborative Filtering Recommender Systems”, by JONATHAN L. HERLOCKER,Oregon State University, and, JOSEPH A. KONSTAN, LOREN G. TERVEEN, andJOHN T. RIEDL of the University of Minnesota, ACM Transactions onInformation Systems, Vol. 22, No. 1, January 2004, Pages 5-53, thecontents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. The termperformance level or metric is used herein to represent a measurableperformance characteristic such as, for example, the percentage of itemsrecommended being interacted with in some way by the user, e.g. 1 out of100 recommendations was selected by a user. The performance metric isdetermined, in the present embodiment, by the recommendation assessor 16b of the recommender input controller 16; however in alternateembodiments this function could be performed by the service platform 14(if this platform is able to assess the performance of therecommendations). Whichever platform has measured the performance metric(recommender input controller 16 or service platform 14) then providesthe measured performance metric to the training data processor 16 a ofthe recommender input controller 16 so that it can process this data bycomparing it with the reference value and selecting an appropriateamount of training data to transmit to the recommender.

Note that in the present embodiment the same usage data is being usedfor two distinct purposes: to evaluate a measured performance metric andto generate training data for sending to the recommender system 18.

Other uses of the recommender input controller 16 include instead oradditionally stabilising the recommender CPU activity towards a desiredprocessor load value, for example, to minimise the processor load ineach recommender cycle whilst maintaining a desired-performance level.Also, the performance level may be optimised instead of stabilised forall users, albeit (possibly) for a given acceptable (maximum) amount ofoverall training data to be provided to the recommender system (i.e. thesystem would then be attempting to optimise the way in which the totalmaximum amount of usage data for a population of users is distributed soas to obtain the overall best recommender performance over thepopulation as a whole given some overall limits on resources availableto the recommender system, such resources including, for example,bandwidth over which usage data can be sent, storage facilities forstoring the data, processing power (e.g. processor cycles available tothe recommender system), etc.

The performance metric(s) may be evaluated in a number of locations inthe system—for example, as mentioned it can be performed in therecommender input controller or at the service platform 14.Alternatively; performance could be evaluated by the recommender system18 itself or at the client device 22 (or some other device connectedthereto and local to the client device—e.g. a user's PC, or a home hubdevice, etc.).

As mentioned hereinabove; in FIG. 1, a single platform 16 is illustratedas possibly providing both batch usage/heuristic data processing (togenerate (possibly ranked) likeness records) and providing thefunctionality to determine the amount of training data to be provided tothe recommender system 18. Alternatively, however, where both functionsare to be performed centrally—i.e. within the network rather than onclient devices—the two control functions could nonetheless beimplemented on separate central platforms.

Although the embodiment of the invention shown in FIG. 1 relates to arecommender system 18 which provides recommendations for a contentdistribution service, the recommender system is not limited torecommendations to just content items as would be apparent to anyone ofordinary skill in the art.

FIG. 2 provides an overview of how the recommender system 18 shown inFIG. 1 provides recommendations to client devices 22 according to anembodiment of the invention. Although FIG. 2 may omit to show someessential steps which would be apparent as necessary to anyone ofordinary skill in the art for the sake of clarity, the inclusion of allnecessary steps to implement the invention is implicit.

As shown in FIG. 1, the recommender server 18 receives data (step S10)which is representative of the response of a user of the relevant clientdevice 22 to which recommendations were previously provided. As shown inFIG. 2, the data is processed for two purposes by the recommender.Firstly, to assess the performance of the previous recommendations (stepS12). For example, how good were the recommendations for that particularuser, did the user select any recommended items, what actions did theuser perform responsive to the recommendations made, did the userprovide any feedback about the recommendations, etc, etc. This step may,however, be performed by the service platform 14 in other embodiments ofthe invention.

Secondly, based on the usage recorded on the client device 22, therecommender system 18 is “trained” (or in fact it has it's trainingupdated to reflect the new information available to it). Newrecommendations are generated (step S14) based on the training state ofthe recommender system (which is preferably as up-to-date as possible)and based on a database of possible items to be recommended to the user(e.g. based on a selection of items to be broadcast and described in anEPG or based on an updated database of movies available for rental (e.g.by downloading or streaming—i.e. Video on Demand) which are thenprovided to the client device 22 (step S16). In the present embodiment,whenever a user interacts (or perhaps fails to interact) withinformation provided on display 24 (step S18), in any one of a number ofpredefined manners, an interaction event is generated (step S24). Forexample, interaction events associated with a user opting to consume arecommended item may be recorded (step S22) and the usage recorder 26may also record when a recommendation is displayed without any responsefrom the user (step S20).

As mentioned above, user interaction event data is acquired (step S24)by the usage recorder 26 when a user interacts with information providedon display 24. User interactions may comprise events such as the userfast-forwarding through content, selecting content to view, storingcontent, pausing content, resuming content, recommending content toother users, deleting content. As such, a very large amount of datamaybe generated from user interaction events. Some events, such aspressing pause, may not be of much relevance in the context ofindicating a user's preference for the item being viewed. Other events,such as storing the content item, particularly if afterwards the userviews it, are likely to be a more reliable indication of userpreference. The client device 22 is configured to generate interactionevent data for a range of user interactions and to push each interactionevent to the usage recorder 26 for monitoring purposes.

The usage recorder 26 in one embodiment of the invention does notfurther process the data it accumulates in each recommendation cycle,but provides all recorded data from step S24 to the recommender inputcontroller 16 (step S30 in FIG. 7A). However, in another embodiment ofthe invention, the client device 22 processes the stored interactiondata (step S26 in FIG. 7B) to generate likeness records (specifying anindication of a user preference towards a particular item) and tocategorize and/or rank the relevance of each item or record of usagedata or each generated likeness record i.e. to determine the (possiblyrelative) estimated usefulness of such an item or record for trainingthe recommender system 18 as to that user's preferences.

This ranking is achieved, in the present embodiment, by using aheuristic processing operation. The heuristic processing may operatesimply to categorize data records into groups, each group beingassociated with a level of usefulness in determining if a user likes ordislikes a content item in addition or instead, heuristic processing isperformed on user interaction data records to derive an explicitindication of a user preference from the interaction events. Forexample, several individual user interaction data records relating to auser storing and viewing a content item may generate a heuristic userpreference data record (or likeness record) indicating the user likesthe content item after they have viewed it a number of times, but beused to indicate a user dislikes the content item if they delete itwithout viewing it or after having viewed only a small portion of it.This kind of inferred likeness data based on usage data is usually lessreliable than a direct user rating of an item but is useful to therecommender system 18 despite the lower degree of confidence as moreinteraction or usage data is usually available than would be the case iffeedback to the recommender system 18 was provided only on content itemsfor which a user has indicated an explicit preference. The individualuser interaction event records or heuristically derived user likenessrecords for a particular content item are also, in the presentembodiment, processed to assign each record to a ranked category interms of its likelihood of providing an indication of a user preference(such as a “liking” or “dislike” or liking value range) to the contentitem to which the record relates when the record is received by therecommendation system 18. This ranking may additionally take intoaccount the perceived general popularity of the respective item;generally speaking information about a user's liking of a less popularitem will be more useful in the training of a recommender thaninformation about a user's liking of a popular item for reasons wellknown to those skilled in the art of recommender systems.

A content service provider typically provides information andrecommendations on its service offerings to a large number of clientdevices 22 associated with its service subscribers. The services offeredtypically comprise both content downloaded as a file as well as contentstreamed point to point or broadcast or multicast over a suitablenetwork. Accordingly a content item can be delivered from data store 14to users by the service platform 14 or via broadcast channels. In someembodiments, users are, capable of providing preference feedback on VoDcontent but not necessarily capable of providing direct preferencefeedback on broadcast material. In other embodiments, no direct feedbackis supported at all for either broadcast, recorded broadcast or VoDcontent. The broadcast and VoD content is displayed to the user via asuitable device, for example, a television or computer, which may haveinternal hardware and/or software components capable of providing anelectronic programme guide (EPG) and/or a web-portal to purchase VoDitems, or which may use a separate set-top box to receive suchinformation. To improve the performance of the recommender for VoDitems, even when a user has not viewed any VoD content in one, or more,or any previous recommendation cycles, the client device records theuser interactions with the EPG and broadcast channels. In practice, therange of user interactions which can be used to deduce a user preferencefor a content item is quite large, as the table below indicates:

TABLE 1 Examples of User Interaction Events Content Type RecordedEstimated User Interaction VOD Broadcast Broadcast Frequency SelectChannel → Watch item ● >daily Favourite Channel ● monthly Record Item ●daily Record series ● monthly Set Reminder ● daily Pause Live TV DeleteRecorded Item ● daily Lock/protect Item ● weekly Purchase Item ● weeklyFriend's Purchases ● weekly Play Item (10%, 50%, 80%) ● ● daily ViewContributor in UI ● ● ● >daily View Item in UI ● ● ● >daily FavouriteItem ● ● ● weekly Favourite Contributor ● ● ● weekly Add Item toPlaylist ● ● ● weekly Remove Item from Playlist ● ● ● weekly Use Item asPlaylist Seed ● ● ● weekly Share Item ● ● ● monthly Share Contributor ●● ● monthly Like Item ● ● ● weekly Like Contributor ● ● ● weekly DislikeItem ● ● ● weekly Dislike Contributor ● ● ● weekly Friend's Plays ● ● ●weekly Friend's Likes ● ● ● weekly Friend's Dislikes ● ● ● weekly Searchfor Item/Contributor ● ● ● weekly Volume level & mute ● ● ● >daily Pause● ● ● daily

The final column in Table 1 provides a rough estimate of the probablefrequency of the specific user interaction event occurring for a typicaluser of the service, which provides an idea of the number of eventswhich might be generated in this event category.

Some of the user interaction events shown in Table 1 will requireadditional processing to identify the content item they relate to, forexample, whenever a select channel/watch product user interaction eventis captured for broadcast content, the specific content item beingwatched is identified using additional processing which determines thecontent item identifier from a broadcast electronic programme guide(EPG). Some user interaction events may also be processed using patternrecognition techniques on the records in data store 32 to determine ifthey fit an activity profile considered to be irrelevant from theperspective of user preference, such as those events resulting fromprogramme search strategies like scanning, flipping, grazing, zappingand channel hopping or if they fit an activity profile indicating alikely preference by the user for the content they relate to. Typicallythe original user interaction events are deleted from data store 32 andnot provided to recommender system 18 as they are replaced with acollective heuristic data record indicating the likely relevance or ifirrelevant, simply discarded. Other patterns of behaviour are known andsome examples can be found in “Dynamics of Individual Television ViewingBehavior: Models, Empirical Evidence, and a Research Program”, by AnkeWonneberger, Klaus Schoenbach, and Lex van Meurs, Amsterdam School ofCommunications Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, 2008; forexample, on page 14 of the paper some exemplary patterns are givenoriginally from another author.

The above events are mostly active in that the user has activelytriggered the event record. However, the term user interaction event isnot limited to such events as passive events which are associableindirectly with a user interaction may also be logged by the usagerecorder 26. For example, the termination of a watched program may notbe accompanied by a user switching off, but this would normally belogged by the usage recorder 26. Also, within a content item, as it isplayed and/or displayed, tagged frames associated with theplayed/displayed content may trigger the generation of a userinteraction event having meta-data associated with the played/displayedcontent. Similarly, it is possible for a user to interact with a seconddisplay (not shown in the drawings) associated with a first displayshowing a content item, and the device supporting the second display mayalso be configured to push user interaction event messages towards theusage recorder associated with the first display 24.

FIG. 3 shows schematically the functional components of usage recorder26 according to an embodiment of the invention. As shown in FIG. 3,usage recorder 26 comprises input and output data (I/O) interfaces 30 a,30 b respectively, a data processing means 28 and data store 32. Usagerecorder 26 receives information comprising user interaction events viaI/O interface 30 a. The received information comprises data messagesgenerated by other components of client device 22 reporting userinteraction events of the type shown in Table 1. Data processing means28 processes the data received to extract the information required togenerate user interaction event records, for example, of the type shownin FIG. 4 and described in more detail herein below. As, mentionedabove, in some instances, additional processing of the user interactionevent data is necessary in order to associate the information providedby the user interaction event message with a content item. For example,if the event comprises the user watching a broadcast TV channel, otherelectronic sources of information such as the EPG provided on the clientdevice 22 is consulted to determine the content item. The resulting userinteraction event records, also referred to herein as usage datarecords, are then stored in data storage means 32 until the end of eachrespective recommender cycle at which point some or all of the storeddata records are forwarded directly or indirectly to the recommendersystem 18.

FIG. 4 shows an exemplary data structure for a data record of a userinteraction event however other data fields may be provided, and themetadata field shown may have substructure. As shown in FIG. 4, a datarecord according to one embodiment of the invention comprises timestampinformation indicating the time of the event, a content identifier, anevent type identifier, and optionally any metadata also provided withthe interaction data. Each usage data record generated for a userinteraction event in a more specific embodiment such as that requiredfor content delivery service recommendations provides the followingcontext information for each action logged: Device ID (for the clientdevice); TimeStamp (e.g. Date/Time of logging the action); a User ID(for the service subscriber); Location (of the client device); contentitem type; and service type. Examples of content item types includecontent items distributed via broadcast channels, multi-cast/box-office,VoD (including replayed items previously broadcast). Examples of servicetype include VoD services, broadcast services, as well as recordedbroadcast and VoD services. Examples of metadata include, in oneembodiment of the invention, a value or ranking which provides anindication of the relevance of the event category for the purposes ofpredicting a user preference, together with a liking value indicate theextent to which it is believed that the user either liked or disliked orwas indifferent towards the item identified by the content ID.

FIG. 5 shows the key steps performed on the client device 22 prior toproviding information to recommender system 18 according to anembodiment of the invention. Firstly, a user interacts with theinformation displayed on the display 24 of client device 22 (step S34)which triggers sending a user interaction event message to the usagerecorder 26 (step S36).

As previously mentioned, the client device 22, in the presentembodiment, is configured to generate a usage event message whenever theuser interaction comprises a recordable event. Examples of recordableevents will depend on the context of client device 22 and its userinterface capabilities. For example, in embodiments where client device22 is configured to provide electronic programme information (forexample, if client device 22 comprises a set-top-box or other adjunctdevice to a television or like apparatus), then when the user interactswith the displayed EPG or otherwise selects a content item to view,store, rewind, fast forward, resume, or recommends it, etc., or causesany other of the events listed in Table 1 to be performed for a contentitem such as video, audio, electronic game, book, computer software etc(this is not an exhaustive list as would be apparent to anyone ofordinary skill in the art) the user interaction is logged by usagerecorder 26.

The usage recorder 26 processes the received user interaction eventmessages (step S38) and logs the interaction in, data store 32 (stepS40). The amount of processing performed by the client device 22 at stepS38 varies between different embodiments of the present invention fromminimal processing to simply generate discrete log records of all eventswhich the device is configured to record (including at least atime-stamp and an indication of the event which has occurred) at oneextreme, to full heuristic processing in order to generate likenessrecords (and indeed in some embodiments, even to make a selection ofwhich of these likeness records should be sent directly to a recommendersystem for training of the recommender system). In the presentembodiment, heuristic processing is performed on the event messages (andprestored data records as indicated by dashed feedback line between stepS40 and step S38) in a manner as described below. As discussed below,the process of generating heuristically processed likeness records maybe an iterative one in which initial data usage records are firstlystored in data store 32 and these are then processed subsequently inorder to generate likeness records (perhaps once sufficient time haspassed to be able to be reasonably confident that all user interactionevents which might be appropriate for capturing in a single likenessrecord have been captured by the system. At such a point in theprocessing therefore, an initially stored interaction event message heldin data store 32 may comprise log data records which have not beenheuristically processed to assess their potential for indicating userpreference for the content item to which they relate.

As shown in FIG. 5, usage recorder 26 is configured, in the presentembodiment, to perform additional processing on the logged data records(returning to step S38 as shown by the dashed line) for some or all userinteraction events, for example, using pattern recognition techniquessuch as those well known in the art, it is possible to determine fromgroups of two or more event records if each record in the group islikely to be relevant or not in terms of expressing a user preferencetowards a content item. In this way, it is possible to discard datarecords which relate to irrelevant events, such as if the timestamps forseveral different “watch broadcast channel” events are very close toeach other, it is likely that the user has been channel hopping and sothe associated data records can be deleted or assigned a very lowrelevance ranking score.

Heuristic processing is additionally or instead run on the stored datarecords to assess how relevant they are in terms of their ability toprovide the recommender system 18 with an indication of a userpreference towards the content item to which they relate. Once a datarecord has had such an indication of the users preference for aparticular content item added to it, it becomes a “likeness'record”which is more directly useful for subsequent processing by anintermediate processing device such as the recommender input controller,or indeed by the recommender 18 itself. More relevant data records willnormally be assigned higher relevance rankings, although a reverseranking scheme is equally viable. This heuristic processing is used todetermine what data in each recommender cycle, i, the client device 22should provide to the recommender system 18. For example, it may be thatthe usage recorder on one client device provides only highly scoringdata to the recommender system 18 (either directly or indirectly)whereas in other embodiments, all client devices 22 provide all the dataheld in data store 32 at the end of each recommender cycle i.

The heuristic data records generated by the client device 22 (step 40)are stored locally in data storage means 32 (step 42) before beingforwarded to the recommender system 18 via the recommender inputcontroller 16 provided by the service provider and via the serviceplatform 14 as shown FIG. 1. Alternatively, it is possible to forwarddata directly to the recommender system 18 where the necessaryfunctionality to limit the amount of training data is provided on eachclient device 22 (or where it is provided at the recommender systemitself).

Note that in the present embodiment, the recommender input controller 16is performing two separate functions based on the received usagedata/heuristic data records/likeness records, namely calculating aperformance metric and selecting a portion of the data to be input tothe recommender system as training data. Some or all of thisfunctionality could however be distributed to the client devices 22. Forexample each client device could assess the performance of therecommender system by comparing the recommended items with the useractions indicating some interaction with the user of the recommendeditems and then provide this to the recommender input controller 16;similarly, each client device could send a selected portion of the usagedata to the recommender system directly for training purposes, theselected portion either being decided by itself (in an entirelydistributed system) or else as indicated by a central device such as therecommender input controller 16. Alternatively, each client device couldperform a first filtering such as to identify usage data records whichsatisfy some minimum level of potential usefulness (either for use ingenerating a performance metric or for training purposes) and then onlysend the data which gets past this first internal filter to therecommender input controller 16. Some points to bear in mind whendesigning a system are that if a central recommender input controlleralready has the data which is to be sent to the recommender system fortraining purposes, there is some logic in it sending the data on to therecommender system rather than getting the individual client devices tosend this info directly to the recommender system (and this wouldtherefore tend to indicate that either the recommender input controlfunctionality should be either completely distributed or completelycentralized); also there is a possibility, when using a central devicesuch as a central recommender input controller; to obtain betterdeterminations of a recommender systems performance metric by comparingthe data from one client device with that from others (for example, afilm which is extremely popular (as indicated based on the results of alarge number of other users' data) should not positively skew theperformance metric for the recommender system which successfullyrecommended it to a single user so much as an unpopular filmsuccessfully recommended by the system)—and this would tend to suggestthat such functionality should be centralized—as in the presentembodiment.

If the heuristic operations run on the user interaction data recordscategorize the data records in terms of their usefulness to therecommender, the amount of data sent over a communications network tothe recommender input data controller 16 and/or recommender system 18 isquite easily limited to events which meet a predetermined set ofcriteria. For example, heuristic data records which fall in a categorywhich explicitly provides indications a viewer liked one or moreparticular content items only may be provided. Alternatively, ifheuristic data records are ranked from a level from 0 (not useful) to 10(very useful), it is possible to only send the heuristic data recordswhich have a usefulness ranking of 5 or above, and the remainingheuristic data may be discarded.

Accordingly if in one embodiment, heuristics are run on the originaluser interaction event records to categorize the records into a relativeorder of likely usefulness in terms of indicating a user preference,meta-data is generated and stored in a heuristically processed datarecord which indicates in that data record its assigned category rankingvalue in absolute terms. However, alternatively, a relative usefulnessranking can be generated in each recommender cycle based on the eventswhich have been logged in that particular recommender cycle. This isuseful where some users do not generate a sufficient number of moreuseful category user interaction events in a given cycle. Only datarecords above a minimum absolute or relative level of usefulness aresent to the recommender system 18 each cycle. Moreover, in someinstances, several user interaction event records are processed andgenerate a single heuristic data record. In this way, some heuristicdata records are able to replace more than one individual interactiondata record in data store 32.

As mentioned above, the heuristic operations on the user generatedinteraction data stored in data store 32 may be run dynamically aspatterns in the stored data records are recognised by the usage recorder26. Alternatively, or in addition, the heuristic processing is runresponsive to a triggering event, such as receiving a request from therecommender system for additional input for new recommendations and/oran amount of time elapsing to indicate that the end of a recommendercycle has been reached.

In any event, once the data has been processed to assign the dataranking values (relative or absolute) it is possible to order the datain usefulness and the client device may then respond intelligently torequests for a certain amount of data, whether those requests arespecified in absolute terms—e.g. provide (the most relevant) X bytes ofdata; or the most relevant N records, etc. or provide all data with aranking of 6 out of 10 usefulness or more, or provide the most useful Xpercent (e.g. top 50%) of the data you have collected for the cycle inquestion, etc.

FIG. 6 shows in more detail an embodiment of a method of generatingheuristic information on a client device 22 which shows schematicallywhat steps are performed by the usage recorder 26 to generate heuristicdata records from user interaction data records. As shown in FIG. 6,when usage recorder 26 receives a new user interaction data message(step S44), the data processor 28 processes it to either extract anevent type identifier if one is provided or to analyse the type of eventto assign it to an event type identifier (step S46). Similarly, timestamp information is determined either by extracting a time-stampprovided with the data message or by assigning a time-stamp (step S48).A content identifier is determined (step S50) again either by extractingit or by cross-referencing time-stamp information with the EPG. Metadatawhich is provided in the message such as the name of an actor in arelated programme or the name of a person to whom a socialrecommendation has been sent, for example, is generated by processingthe user interaction event data (step S52). This information is thenused to populate the data fields of a usage or user interaction datarecord (step S54) which is then stored in data store 32 (step S56).Although shown in a particular sequence in FIG. 6, those of ordinaryskill in the art will be aware that steps S46 to S52 may be executed inany appropriate sequence order or even in parallel in some instances.

Accordingly, in the embodiment shown in FIG. 6, in response to apredefined heuristic processing trigger event, for example, a requestfrom the recommender input controller 16 for new input data or theelapsing of a recommendation cycle (step S58), heuristics operations, bywhich term is meant a so-called commonsense rule (or set of rules) whichare intended to increase the quality or usefulness of the data recordsused for training the recommender, are run on the stored usage datarecords (step S60), and new heuristic data records are generated (S62),which are then stored (S56). Optionally, data records made redundant bythe heuristic processing, such as may be the case if new heuristic datarecords are generated, are discarded (step S63).

One example of a heuristic operation in the context of an embodiment ofthe invention ranks a “watch channel” event highly as showing a user'spreference for the associated content item being viewed. However,processing additional data records which indicated the channel waswatched over a long period of time whilst the content item's audio wasmuted, results in a heuristic rule which re-ranks the watch-channelevent data record as less likely to show a user preference or likingtowards the silently viewed content. Accordingly, not all events of thesame type may receive the same ranking, and rankings may be overwritten.Additional heuristics can, thus be run on previous data records whichhave been previously subject to heuristic processing. However, bycategorizing user interaction data records not just by event type butalso or instead by a user preference ranking which indicates if theymight be useful for indicating a user preference towards the contentitem the data record relates to, it is possible to adjust how much datais sent in any one recommender cycle to re-train the recommender system18 for that user. At the end of each recommender cycle, some or all ofthe data records held in data store 32 are uploaded to the recommenderserver 18, either directly or indirectly via the recommender inputcontroller 16 by the client device. At this point, the unused datarecords held in data store 32 are normally deleted to clear more spaceto record data in the next recommender cycle.

Each recommendation cycle is modelled in one embodiment of the inventionas a fixed interval, i.e., after a predetermined amount of time, all ofthe client devices 22 in communications system 10 which receiverecommendations will provide the user interaction event data records tothe service provider's service platform 14. Even if the data uploads areat staggered time intervals, the service provider is likely to stillreceive a large amount of data, particularly if the client devices 22have not pre-processed the user interaction data to limit the data sentusing heuristic processing to determine which records are likely to bemore useful to the recommender system 18. Accordingly, in order to limitthe amount of data provided to the recommender system 18, input controlneeds to be implemented according to the invention either on the clientdevices 22 or in the network.

Returning briefly now to FIG. 1, the service platform 14 is providedwith data from client devices 22 and forwards this data to anetwork-based recommender input controller 16. The recommender inputcontroller 16 shown in FIG. 1 provides three data processing functions.The first function determines the amount of data to input to therecommender, also referred to as training data U(t) which is shown astraining data processor 16 a in FIG. 1. The second function is toprocess the received usage data records in order to assess theperformance of previous recommendations (e.g. did the user watch mediaitems recommended in the recommendations?) which is shown asrecommendation assessor 16 b. The third function, shown as optional asit is alternatively provided entirely on each client device, comprises aheuristic data processing function shown as usage data processor 16 c inFIG. 1. This function comprises processing user interaction data recordsto generate likeness records (heuristic data records which include anindication of user preference) and/or to heuristically rank each recordin order of its likely usefulness in training the recommender system 18(e.g. associated with the confidence that the degree of preference for aspecified item is correct, and/or the usefulness in terms of howdifferentiated the preference is from an average user).

In one embodiment, a first level of heuristic processing is performed oneach client device to provide likeness records indicating a determineddegree of preference by a user for a particular content item and then asecond level of heuristic processing is performed centrally by therecommender input controller to rank the likeness records in order oftheir usefulness to the recommender system 18 based on a combination ofthe degree of preference for a particular content item as determined bya respective client device 22 and the general popularity of therespective content item (possibly determined centrally in dependenceupon other user's likeness records) (where generally likeness recordsassociated with less popular content items are more useful for traininga recommender system).

As mentioned above, the heuristic processing functionality can be placedin a number of different locations, most importantly either inindividual client devices (e.g. as usage data processor 28 of FIG. 1) orin a central device within the network (e.g. the usage data processor 16c within the recommender input controller 16). The benefit of placingthe functionality in client devices is that processing is distributed tothe edge of the network to client devices which are likely to have spareprocessing power available for such activities and that the amount ofdata that needs to be transmitted from each client device can bereduced. On the other hand, it is possible to schedule uploads of datafrom the client devices in such a way that the load is thinly spreadover time and the adverse impact on the network as a result of thisprocess is relatively small; in such embodiments, a greater bottleneckmay exist between a server platform which collects such data and thenforwards it to the recommender system 18. In such a case performing theusage data processing at the service platform is as beneficial asperforming it at the client devices (so long as it is performedsomewhere before the bottleneck so as to minimise the amount of datathat needs to flow through the bottleneck). Moreover it may be that abetter assessment of the usefulness of data records to the recommendersystem 18 can be made centrally than at individual client devices(especially in terms of identifying generally popular items from morespecialised items, etc.). Finally, it may be more efficient to implementas a centralized service where the hardware used to implement thefunctionality can be better tailored to the functionality to beperformed and the software used to implement the functionality can beinstalled, administered, modified, updated etc at a single centrallocation more easily and effectively than at a large number ofdistributed client devices.

FIGS. 7A and 7B show schematically various ways of providing data fromthe usage recorder 26 to the recommender system 16, depending on whethersome or all heuristic programming is performed in the network on theuser interaction data records.

In FIG. 7A, the usage recorder 26 does not pre-process any dataheuristically on the client device 22 to categorize user interactionswith a ranking level according to how useful each user interactionrecord is likely to be in terms of indicating a user preference for thecontent item each record relates to. Therefore in the embodimentillustrated in FIG. 7A all of the filtering required by the embodimentto control the training data used by the recommender system is performedeither by the recommender input controller or, as in a least preferredembodiment of the present invention, by the recommender system itself(this last least preferred arrangement being illustrated by the dashedline in FIG. 7A whereby all of the user interaction records are uploadedto recommender system 18 (usually this would be via service platform 14,but could alternatively be directly)). This naturally could createcongestion at the recommender system 18 if all client devices 22 forwhich recommendations are being provided uploaded their user interactionrecords to the recommender system 18 at the same time. Furthermore, inthis least preferred embodiment, no filtering takes place at the clientdevice in terms of ranking the relevance of the records, or at therecommender input controller and so the entire set of user interactiondata records are uploaded to recommender system 18 regardless of theirrelevance and therefore rather than reducing the burden on therecommender system 18 it is increased.

Therefore, according to the more preferred embodiment illustrated inFIG. 7A (ignoring the dashed line), where user records are not ranked orfiltered at the client device 22 (and thus corresponds to an embodimentin which a client device does not contain a usage data processor 28 asillustrated in FIG. 1 but the recommender input controller 16 includes ausage data processor 16 c), to control how much training data is passedto the recommender system 18, client devices 22 send their userinteraction data records (step S30) to the recommender system 22 via therecommender input controller 16 (also via service platform 14, notshown) which pre-processes this data to generate training records whichare then sent on to the recommender for training purposes. The usagedata processor 16 c function of the recommender input controller 16processes the received user interaction data records (step S66) byrunning a heuristic algorithm to determine the likely relevance of eachdata record as an indication of a user preference for a content item towhich it relates (or to which a relationship can be inferred from thedata somehow) and then assigns each such record a ranking to indicate adetermined usefulness to the recommender system 18 for trainingpurposes. For each client device 22, the data records are then rankedand stored in an appropriate data store (step S68).

In the more preferred embodiment shown in FIG. 7A, the recommender inputcontroller 16 sends a batch of data records for all of the clientdevices 22 in communications system 10 which receive recommendations forthe service offered by the service provider. Accordingly, until somebatch forwarding condition is met (step S70), the input controller waitsuntil more records are received (step S72). At this point, the amount ofdata for each client device is individually filtered before beingforwarded to recommender system 18 (step S74) according to their likelyrelevance in adjusting the recommender system's performance.Accordingly, a ranking condition for forwarding, for example, a minimumranking level, is imposed on all of the user interaction data records bythe input controller to ensure that only data records which have beenassigned a category and/or ranking in terms of their relevance above adynamically adjustable level are forwarded to the recommender system 18.This ranking condition for forwarding, however, is capable of beingindividually determined for each individual user interaction data recordset, i.e., for each user, which enables a varying amount of the data tobe provided to the recommender system 18 to retrain its performance forthe respective user.

In this way, each training data set U(t) for a user is adjustableaccording to the amount and types of recorded user activity. In eachrecommender cycle i, each respective client device 26 uploads itsheuristically un-ranked (although possibly pre-processed in some way)user interaction event records generated in that cycle (step S30) viaservice platform 14 to the recommender input controller 1′6. Therecommender input controller 16 processes the received data (S80) in thecurrent recommender cycle i to assign a ranking and then filters theamount of ranked usage data it provides as a training data set U(ti) tothe recommender system 18.

The ranked usage data is individually filtered by the recommender inputcontroller 16 for each respective client device 22, so that the rankedusage data provided in recommender cycle i is likely to result in a setof recommendations for the next recommendation cycle i+1 whoseperformance y(t) more closely approximates a desired reference level ofrecommendation performance y_(REF). Once the input conditions forforwarding data for recommender cycle i to the recommender system 18 aremet, a batch of stored data sets U(t_(i))s is forwarded to therecommender system 18 (step S74). The recommender then generates newrecommendations for the next recommender cycle i+1 (step S76). Therecommendations are then delivered to the client devices 22 (step S78).

The way the recommender input controller determines the filteringconditions for ranked user interaction records is described in moredetail herein below with reference to FIGS. 8 to 10 of the accompanyingdrawings.

Note that even in the least preferred embodiment illustrated by thedashed line in FIG. 7A, the step S80 of processing the received datastill needs to be performed, only it is performed by the recommendersystem 18 itself rather than the recommender input controller andclearly in such a case there is no need to send the processed data tothe recommender system since it is doing the preprocessing (and so stepsS70, S72 and S74 at least become redundant).

Turning now to FIG. 7B of the accompanying drawings, two embodiments ofthe invention are Shown schematically in both of which the data which is(ultimately) input to the recommender system 18 comprises data which hasbeen pre-processed and potentially assigned a relevance ranking by usagerecorder 26. In one of these embodiments the data is sent directly tothe recommender system 18 whereas in the other it goes via therecommender input controller 16 which first, performs some additionalprocessing on the pre-processed data before forwarding the data (derivedoriginally from the client devices 22) to the recommender system 18.

In FIG. 7B, the usage recorder 26 processes stored user interactionevent records to generate heuristic data records likeness records (instep S26) which are capable of then being filtered on the client devicebefore being forwarded to recommender system 18. In the embodiment shownby the dashed line in FIG. 7B, each client device 22 directly forwardsdata to the recommender system 18 by adhering to, for example, anappropriate upload schedule. Alternatively, uploads can be coordinatedby service platform 14. The recommender system 18 thus receives onlypre-processed usage data which has been filtered directly by each clientdevice 26. As such, each client device 26 may use a fixed predeterminedfiltering ranking level (e.g. send all events ranked 5 or above on ascale from 0 to 10 no matter how many), a relative ranking level (e.g.only send the categories of events which provide the top 50% of allevents, no matter what their individual ranking), or a training datacontrol function can be run on the client device 26 similar to thetraining data control function 16 b shown in FIG. 1 as run in thenetwork, providing performance data y_(REF) and y(t) is made availableto each client device 26.

Accordingly, in the embodiment represented by the dashed line betweensteps S30 and S76 in FIG. 7B, the set of training data records U(t)comprises data generated by heuristically pre-processing usage events sothat a reduced data set is provided to the recommender system 18 fromthe client device 22. This client-filtered data is then used by therecommender system 18 to generate new recommendations (step S76) foreach client device 22 which are then suitably delivered to therespective client device (step S78).

Also shown in FIG. 7B of the drawings is an embodiment of a method ofproviding input to a recommender system according to the invention inwhich the usage recorder 26 pre-processes data (S26) and uploads thedata (S30) to the recommender input controller 16 (step S80). Thepre-processing may include a filtering step; for example, the samefiltering according to rank as described hereinabove, however, inaddition the recommender input controller also processes the datarecords received from each client device 26 to determine what sub-set ofthe received, pre-processed data is to be sent to the recommender system18. Accordingly, in this instance, the recommender input controllerfunctions in a similar way as was described in FIG. 7A, except on asmaller data set to start with and without the need to determine anindicator of the user preference for a particular content item.

Once the recommender input controller 16 has determined the optimum dataset U(t) to provide to the recommender system 18 for each client device26, it will store the result (step S68) and determine whether it isappropriate to provide input to the recommender system 18 (step S70). Ifit is not appropriate, for example, if one or more upload conditionsneed to be complied with but have not been so far, the controller 18will wait for more data to be received (step S72). Normally theadditional data will be from other client devices (not shown) asalthough it is possible for client device 26 to provide repeated uploadsto the controller 16 within a recommendation cycle, this would mean thatthe pre-processed data would be unlikely to be optimally reduced data bythe heuristic processing the usage recorder 26 performs.

Accordingly, in each recommendation cycle i, once the (or all)forwarding condition(s) has(have) have been met, recommender controller16 forwards a global set of individual U(t_(i))s to the recommendationsystem 18 (step S74). The global set of U(t_(i))s comprises all theindividual U(t_(i)) the controller 16 has determined for each respectiveclient device 26 which has provided data in the respectiverecommendation cycle i. Examples of upload condition(s) which must bemet for the controller 16 to provide input to the recommender system 18(step 70), include for example: if all client devices have provided datain a given recommendation cycle i; if all recommender cycles have apredetermined duration, once a given amount of time has elapsed; or ifthe recommender system 18 has requested input. At this point therecommender system 18 generates new recommendations (step S76), and therecommendations are appropriately delivered to the client devices 26(step S78).

The amount of data which is provided in each recommendation cycle is, inone embodiment of the invention, provided by a performance feedback loopin which the controller 16 participates and is shown schematically inFIG. 8 of the accompanying drawings.

The feedback loop shown in FIG. 8 shows the recommender training datainput controller or processing Junction 16 a receiving y_(REF) fromservice platform 14. The recommender input controller 16 then processesthis with a performance metric y(t) measured, in the present embodiment,by the recommendation assessor function 16 b, and uses this to determinethe amount of data needed to drive y(t) towards y_(REF). This enablesthe recommender system 18 to generally address the fact that userscontinue to rate items over time by iteratively re-training itspreference models. Recommender system 18 is configured to request and/orreceive regular iterative training data updates u(t) to improve therecommendations it provides to users. An on-line learning algorithm isprovided in the recommender system 18 which seeks to learn what are themost preferred type of content items for individual users based on thetraining data updates u(t) provided to it by the recommender inputcontroller 16. The recommender input controller 16 seeks to adapt thetype and amount of usage data provided as training data to therecommender system 18 for each individual client device 22 to providethe minimum amount of data to drive the recommender system 18 towardsthe predetermined level of recommendation performance y_(REF) for eachclient device 22.

In one embodiment, y_(REF) is fixed for all client devices/servicesubscribers at the same level by the service provider or other party andthe recommender input controller 16 is then used to control theoperation of the recommender system 18 towards this desired global levelof performance. Note though that in alternative embodiments severaldifferent values of y_(REF) could be used for different groups of users(or in the extreme on an individual user by user basis). In other words,a provider may choose to segment their client population into groupswith different performance targets.

The configuration of the recommender input controller 16 will now bedescribed with reference to FIG. 9 of the accompanying drawings. Herethe performance of the recommender system 18 is denoted as y(t), where trepresents the time domain, and y(t) the performance at a given time.Performance is observed directly by monitoring the uploaded data fromthe client devices and is determined by recommender assessor 16 b.

The amount of data uploaded to the recommender system 18, either by therecommender input controller 16 located in the network or by the clientdevice 22 (in an alternative embodiment in which similar functionalityto that of the recommender input controller 16 is provided directly oneach client device), is denoted u(t). Effectively, u(t) indicates thenumber of new training samples which are used to adjust the performanceof the recommender system 18. Analysis of the system dynamics revealsthat the rate of change of performance y′(t) is proportional to thenumber of new training samples u(t) entering the system, where eachclient device 26 generates usage data from which u(t) is derived.Assuming the number of new training samples is proportional to currentperformance y(t) of the recommender system 18, one can deduce a certainnumber of new training samples is necessary to maintain the performanceof the recommender system 18. Accordingly, the dynamic performance ofthe recommender system 18 can be modelled as:ry′(t)+ky(t)≈u(t)  Eqn. 1where y′(t) is the time derivative of the system performance y(t), asmentioned above. r and k are parameters which may be estimated fromsystem performance. Note that this can be considered as being analogousto a mechanical system in which a block is connected to a fixed wall bya spring and a dampener (whose dampening force is negativelyproportional to the velocity of the block (towards or away from thewall). In the analogy, k is equivalent to the Hooke's constant of thespring, y(t) is equivalent to the displacement or the extension of thespring and r is equivalent to the dampening factor of the dampener. Asteady force away from the wall will result in the block (eventually)adopting a fixed position at a distance (e.g. distance d) away from thewall at which the back-pulling force of the spring exactly balances theoutward force being applied to the block.

Estimations of r and k may be obtained by rewriting the abovedifferential equation in discrete form as:

$\begin{matrix}{{y(t)} = {{\frac{r}{r + {\Delta\;{tk}}}{y\left( {t - 1} \right)}} + {\frac{\Delta\; t}{r + {\Delta\;{tk}}}{u(t)}} + {ɛ(t)}}} & {{Eqn}.\mspace{11mu} 2}\end{matrix}$where Δt denotes the unit of time interval and ε(t) denotes theuncertainty in the system. Over a time period t∈[0,T], the performancein matrix notation can be expressed as

$\begin{matrix}{{{{y = {{Y^{\prime}\theta} + ɛ}}{{{{where}\mspace{14mu} y} = {y(1)}},\ldots\;,{y(t)},\ldots\;,{y(T)}^{\prime},{and}}\theta = \left( {\frac{r}{r + {k\;\Delta\; t}},\frac{\Delta\; t}{r + {k\;\Delta\; t}}} \right)^{\prime}},\mspace{14mu}{and}}{Y = {\begin{pmatrix}{y(0)} & \ldots & {y\left( {t - 1} \right)} & \ldots & {y\left( {T - 1} \right)} \\{u(1)} & \ldots & {u(t)} & \ldots & {u(T)}\end{pmatrix}.}}} & {{Eqn}.\mspace{11mu} 3}\end{matrix}$

(Note indicates taking the transpose of a matrix—i.e. Y′ means thetranspose of Y)

Using Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation from the observation over thistime period t∈[0,T], and assuming that the error ε has a multivariatenormal distribution with each random variable being independent of oneanother and having a mean of 0 and a variance of σ² such that thecovariance matrix Σ collapses to a variance matrix which can beexpressed as σ²I where I is the identity matrix of rank T (i.e. for Ieach element on the diagonal is one and every other element is zero—orequivalently the variance matrix has each element on the diagonal equalto σ² and every other element is zero). Since |I|=1, |σ²I|=σ^(2T) andI⁻¹=I and (σ²I)⁻¹=σ⁻²I, the log-likelihood function of the parametersmay be expressed as

$\begin{matrix}{L\left( {\theta,{{\sigma^{2}\left. Y \right)} = {\ln\left( {\frac{\sigma^{- T}}{\left( {2\pi} \right)^{T/2}}e^{- \frac{{({y - {Y^{\prime}\theta}})}^{\prime}{({y - {Y^{\prime}\theta}})}}{2\sigma^{2}}}} \right)}}} \right.} & {{Eqn}.\mspace{11mu} 4}\end{matrix}$

This is then differentiated with respect to θ to find the ML estimatesof the parameter θ and hence k and r assuming Δt=1 (that is data issampled once per day (i.e., assuming each recommender cycle has a timeinterval of one day)), thus:

$\begin{matrix}{\left( {\frac{\hat{r}}{\hat{r} + \hat{k}},\frac{1}{\hat{r} + \hat{k}}} \right)^{\prime} = {{argmax}_{\theta}\left( {{L\;\theta},{{\delta^{2}\left. Y \right)} = {\left( {Y\; Y^{\prime}} \right)^{- 1}{Yy}}}} \right.}} & {{Eqn}.\mspace{11mu} 5}\end{matrix}$u(t) is then chosen to increase the accuracy and robustness of theestimation provided. Disturbance is modelled by using a log-normalrandom walk model (as described for example in Bacry, E., Delour, J.,and Muzy, J., “Multifractal random walk” in Physical Review E 2001) toestimate the mean (μ) and standard deviation (σ) from the input data andsimulate a time-series that has the same mean and variance. By definingthe u(t) as the time series of the input values over a predefined timeperiod [0,T], the modified input u(t) becomes du(t)=μu(t)dt+σu(t) dW(t)where W(t) is the Wiener process dW(t)=ε√dt and ε is the noise N(0,1).This approach randomizes the time series depending on the standarddeviation of the intended input. By setting σ to zero, the exponentialcurve obtained can be used to represent data growth.

u(t) is optimised by the recommender input controller 16 so that theperformance of the recommender is as stable as possible. In other words,if the performance deteriorates from the desired value, the input u(t)needs to change quickly to bring y(t) back to the desired value.Accordingly, the performance y(t) generated in the previousrecommendation cycle is fed back to the controller and compared with thedesired reference value y_(REF). Alternatively, the resulting errorsignal e(t)=y_(REF)−y(t) is calculated by the recommendation assessor 16b in the recommender input controller 16 (in embodiments such as thepresent one in which this measures the performance y(t) and hasvisibility of the desired y_(REF)), in which case it is possible to justprovide e(t) to the training data processor 16 a.

When the training data processor 16 a receives the feedback signal (y(t)or e(t)), it calculates how much it needs to modify the amount of u(t)provided in that cycle, and based on this and its knowledge of theamount of data which has been assigned to each ranking level, filtersthe amount of data forwarded to the recommender system 18. In this way,the feedback on how the recommender system 18 has performed in theprevious cycle based on usage data received from the client devicesenables the recommender input controller 16 to dynamically compensatefor changes in user activity levels etc, and produce for each individualclient device training data which should result in the recommenderperformance being driven towards the desired performance level Y_(REF).

As mentioned above, this feedback loop is shown schematically in FIG. 8.In FIG. 8, the reference recommendation performance metric y_(REF) isused to control the input provided by the recommender input controller16 to the recommender system 18 so that the performance of therecommender system 18 stabilizes ideally around y_(REF) for each clientdevice 22. If y_(REF) is fixed for all client devices receiving servicerecommendations for the service, provided by a service provider, theamount of training data provided from each client device differs toensure that the recommender performance in the next cycle is likely tobe the same for all client devices. Accordingly, in any givenrecommender cycle i, when the recommender input controller 16 receivesinput from one or more client devices 22, it determines how to filterthe data using a feedback performance metric y(t_(i-1)) which therecommendation assessor 16 b has provided based on its determination ofthe performance of the previous i−1 recommender cycle's recommendations.Using this information, the training data processor 16 a determines anerror value e(t_(i-1))=y_(REF)−y(t_(i-1)). This is then used to adjusthow many training data records u(t_(i)) are to-be provided to therecommender system 18 for use by the recommender system 18 in the nextrecommender cycle i+1.

Various different closed loop control algorithms could of course be usedto determine the amount of new training data that should be sent to therecommender system 18 for each device based on an assessment of theperformance of prior recommendations for that device. However, in thepresent embodiment, a type of PID (Proportional, Integral, Differential)controller is used with values set for the three control variables(referred to below as C, B and D for the proportional, integral anddifferential control variables respectively). The present invention isnot limited to any particular way of setting the values of such controlvariables, but in the example of the present embodiment in which therecommender system 18 is modelled in the manner described above, asimulation of the recommender system was used to help choose reasonablestarting values for C, B and D which by design were considered toprovide stable behaviour and then the values where tweaked to optimisethe design in terms of the behaviour of the system. The presentinventors found in particular that a zero value for the differentialcontrol variable D provided good results. This can be achieved by usingthe control algorithm to obtain as the Manipulated Variable a differencefrom the previous value of u(t) (i.e. u(t_(i))−u(t_(i-1))) instead ofmanipulating u(t_(i)) directly, and then setting the B variable to zero(since obtaining a difference in u(t) as the manipulated variable isapproximately equivalent to identifying the change in the manipulatedvariable and thus the differential component (scaled by D) becomesapproximately equivalent to a proportional component and theproportional component (scaled by C) becomes approximately equivalent tothe integral component, while the integral component (scaled by B)becomes approximately equivalent to a double integrated component whichcan be safety disposed of). Generally having no differential componentin a PID controller (and therefore being effectively a PI controller)helps to keep the system operating relatively stably even within a noisyenvironment, which is clearly appropriate in the present case wherethere is a large amount of noise in the measured error value (termed theProcess Variable in standard PID controller theory).

FIG. 9 shows how the number of training sampled u(t_(i)) is calculatedaccording to the present embodiment of the invention discussed above inwhich the input controller 16 is configured as a PID closed loopcontroller (with values for the control variables C, B and D preferablychosen using a model of a damped harmonic oscillator to model therecommender system 18 as described above). As previously mentioned, in acurrent recommendation cycle i, controller 16 receives a performancemeasurement (the Process Variable) from the previous recommendationcycle i−1, which is used to determine a training data set u(t_(i)) whichin turn is taken into account by the recommender system 18 in time forthe next recommendation, cycle i+1. As shown in FIG. 9, the controllercompares the received performance data metric y(t_(i-1)) for theprevious cycle i−1 against a reference performance metric y_(REF) todetermine an error metric e(t_(i-1)) for that cycle i−1. Then, thecontroller 18 sums the error metric e(t_(i-1)) scaled by the controlvariable C with the sum over all previous cycles of the product of theerror metric e(t) and the duration between samples Δt, scaled by anothercontrol variable B with the difference between the error e(t_(i-1)) andthe previous cycle's error e(t_(i-2)) multiplied by another controlvariable D divided by the time between cycles Δt(Δt=(t_(i)−t_(i-1))=(t_(i-1)−t_(i-2)) . . . etc.), as shown below, inEquation (6):

$\begin{matrix}{{u\left( t_{1} \right)} = {{{Ce}\left( t_{i - 1} \right)} + {B{\sum\limits_{t = 0}^{t = t_{i - 1}}{{e(t)}\Delta\; t}}} + {D\frac{{e\left( t_{i - 1}^{\prime} \right)} - {e\left( t_{i - 2} \right)}}{\Delta\; t}}}} & {{Eqn}.\mspace{11mu} 6}\end{matrix}$

Accordingly, controller 16 functions as a proportional integralderivative (PID) controller in which for each future cycle i, the firstterm comprises the proportional gain linear relationship between theerror e(t_(i-1)) of the preceding cycle and the next cycle inputu(t_(i)), the second term describes the relationship between theintegral of the error e(t_(i-1)) and the next cycle input u(t_(i)) andthe final term describes the relationship between the rate of change(the time derivative) of the error e(t_(i-1)) from the previous cyclei−2 and the next cycle's input u(t_(i)). Assuming uniform sampling,Δt=1, the above equation which approximates the differential equationfor a damped harmonic oscillator can be rewritten as:

$\begin{matrix}{{u\left( t_{i} \right)} = {{{Ce}\left( t_{i - 1} \right)} + {B{\sum\limits_{t = 0}^{t = t_{i - 1}}{e(t)}}} + {D\left( {{e\left( t_{i - 1} \right)} - {e\left( t_{i - 2} \right)}} \right)}}} & {{Eqn}\mspace{14mu} 7}\end{matrix}$

FIG. 10 shows sequentially the data flows which occur between the systemcomponents shown in FIG. 1. It shows two entire recommender cycles(cycles i−1 and i) but begins with showing the service provider settingthe desired performance level y_(REF). Some time after setting y_(REF),recommendations for cycle i−1 are sent by the recommender to a clientdevice. Note that the desired performance level, y_(REF), is usually setfor a number of recommender cycles. At the start of cycle i−1,recommendations are sent to each client device 22. At the end of cyclei−1 a new set of recommendations associated with cycle i are sent andafter this the client device responds by uploading usage data associatedwith the preceding set of recommendations (cycle i−1) to the recommenderinput controller 16. As mentioned hereinabove, optionally the usage dataprocessor 16 c of the recommender input controller 16 will assignrelevance rankings at this point which may supplement or be instead ofrelevance rankings assigned by the client devices to all user recordsforwarded. The recommendation assessor 16 b of the recommender inputcontroller 16 then processes the usage data for the previous cycle(possibly after some further processing of the data by the usage dataprocessor 16 c) to obtain a performance value y(t_(i-1)), and then thetraining data processor 16 a compares y(t_(i-1)) to the reference valuey_(REF), and determines the number of training data records, u(t_(i)),to send to the recommender system 18 (note though that u(t) will in factbe formed from usage data (after suitable processing) associated withthe preceding cycle i−1 and not with the usage data obtained as a resultof user usage performed during cycle i). Depending on the value ofu(t_(i)), the most highly ranked training data records are then sent.This may be performed by listing all user interaction events accordingto ranking and applying a cut-off ranking below which the userinteraction data records of the low ranking events are discarded orsimply by selecting the n highest ranked records, etc. The filtered (andotherwise processed) usage data, u(t_(i)), for each client device isthen sent to the recommender system 18 (either directly or via serviceplatform 14), enabling the recommender system 18 to generate the nextset of recommendations and to determine the necessary adjustmentsrequired to drive its performance towards the desired y_(REF) level.

In this way, the recommender input controller balances the performanceof recommendation system 18 for all customers against the amount of userbehaviour data collected from customers on an individual basis. In acontent delivery service scenario, the invention enables a large subsetof customers to be targeted with personalized recommendations even ifthey only watch broadcast TV.

Whilst the above embodiments have been described primarily in terms ofcontent items, those of ordinary skill in the art will realise that therecommender control system can be provided in any context whererecommendations are provided for consumable items, and as such the abovedescription is not limited to any content item such as multi-media datacomprising video, audio or text but extends to controlling anyrecommender performance for any recommendable consumableproduct/service. As such the scope of items for which recommendationsare provided, and recommender input control provided in accordance withthe invention, is not limited, for example, to films, music (video andaudio), and books but also applies to any item for sale as well asservices (for example, trading outfits etc). Such services for whichrecommendations are generated may comprise a service selling items fordelivery to the user or a service advertising the services of otherparties.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of providing recommendations to a clientdevice, the method comprising: a recommender system delivering a firstset of recommendations to the client device in a first recommendationcycle; the recommender system delivering a second set of recommendationsto the client device in a second recommendation cycle; generating andstoring usage data determined by the client device as potentiallyuseful, and ranking the usage data into at least two differentcategories of potential usefulness in deriving user preferenceinformation, the ranked potentially useful usage data stored on theclient device being usage data generated in response to user actionsperformed on or with the client device, and the ranking of the usagedata into the at least two different categories of potential usefulnessin deriving the user preference information by the client deviceincluding performing a heuristic processing on the usage data; theclient device transmitting a first set of usage data to the recommendersystem, the first set of usage data being associated with the first setof recommendations; calculating a performance value of the first set ofrecommendations based on the first set of usage data and comparing theperformance value to a performance reference value; responding at theclient device to a trigger for providing a second set of usage dataranked in a first category of potential usefulness so that the providedsecond set of usage data is limited to only usage data ranked in thefirst category of potential usefulness, the second set of usage dataranked in the first category of potential usefulness relating to atleast two user actions performed on or with the client device, at leastone of the user actions including user storing or viewing of a contentitem such that the second set of usage data ranked in the first categoryof potential usefulness includes an explicit indication of userpreference inferred from the heuristic processing on the usage datarelating to the at least one of the user actions including the userstoring or viewing of the content item; selecting at the client devicean amount of the usage data for the second set of usage data, whereinthe selected usage data is ranked in the first category of potentialusefulness and is dependent upon the trigger, or having been specifiedby the recommender system, and is further dependent on the comparison ofthe calculated performance value of the first set of recommendations tothe performance reference value; transmitting the selected second set ofusage data to the recommender system for use by the recommender system;generating a third set of recommendations based on the transmittedsecond set of usage data; and transmitting the third set ofrecommendations to the client device.
 2. A method according to claim 1wherein selecting the usage data for the second set of usage datacomprises selecting a subset comprising some but not all of the storedusage data.
 3. A method according to claim 1 wherein the trigger is thereceipt of a request from the recommender system for the second set ofusage data and wherein the selection of usage data for the second set ofusage data for transmission is made in dependence upon criteriaspecified in the request.
 4. A method according to claim 1 whereinranking of the usage data is based on a ranking system which aims torank the usage data in order of its usefulness for indicating thepreference of one or more media items consumed by a user of the clientdevice, and wherein the selected usage data depends upon the ranking ofthe usage data.
 5. A method according to claim 1, wherein the usage datais pre-processed to form a set of preference records each of whichidentifies a media item, and includes an indication of a user preferencefor that media item.
 6. A method according to claim 5 wherein eachpreference record further includes an indication of whether a liking ora disliking for the media item identified in the record has beeninferred from the associated usage data by the pre-processing of thatusage data.
 7. A method according to claim 6 wherein the preferencerecord further includes an indication of the associated usage data fromwhich a liking indication has been inferred.
 8. A non-transitory carriermedium carrying processor implementable instructions for causing themethod of claim 1 to be carried out during execution of the processorimplementable instructions.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein another ofthe at least two user actions performed on or with the client deviceincludes a direct user rating of a content item.
 10. A recommendationarrangement comprising a recommender system and a plurality of clientdevices, wherein each client device comprises: a receiver for receivinga first, second and third set of recommendations from the recommendersystem; a usage logger for generating, storing and ranking usage datainto at least two different categories of potential usefulness inderiving user preference information, the ranked potentially usefulusage data stored on the client device being usage data generated inresponse to user actions performed on or with the client device, and theranking of the usage data into the at least two different categories ofpotential usefulness in deriving the user preference information by theclient device including performing a heuristic processing on the usagedata; a transmitter for transmitting a first set of usage data to therecommender system, the first set of usage data being associated withthe first set of recommendations; a processor configured to calculate aperformance value of the first set of recommendations and compare thecalculated performance value to a performance reference value; aresponder for responding to a trigger for providing a second set ofusage data to the recommender system, the second set of usage dataranked in a first category of potential usefulness so that the providedusage data is limited to only usage data ranked in the first category ofpotential usefulness, the usage data ranked in the first category ofpotential usefulness relating to at least two user actions performed onor with the client device, at least one of the user actions includinguser storing or viewing of a content item such that the usage dataranked in the first category of potential usefulness includes anexplicit indication of user preference inferred from the heuristicprocessing on the usage data relating to the at least one of the useractions including the user storing or viewing of the content item; and aselector for selecting an amount of the usage data for the second set ofusage data, wherein the second set of usage data is ranked in the firstcategory of potential usefulness and is dependent upon the trigger, orhaving been specified by the recommender system, and is furtherdependent on the comparison of the calculated performance value of thefirst set of recommendations to the performance reference value; whereinthe transmitter is also for transmitting the selected second set ofusage data to the recommender system; and wherein the recommender systemcomprises: a recommendation generator for generating the first set ofrecommendations, the second set of recommendations, and the third set ofrecommendations, wherein the third set of recommendations are based onthe transmitted second set of usage data; and a transmitter fortransmitting the first, second and third sets of recommendations to theclient devices.
 11. A recommendation arrangement according to claim 10,wherein the responder for responding to a trigger comprises a receiverfor receiving a request, from the recommender system, for the second setof usage data and wherein the selection of the second set of usage datafor transmission is made in dependence upon criteria specified in therequest.
 12. A client device comprising: a receiver for receiving afirst, second and third set of recommendations from a recommendersystem; a usage logger for generating, storing usage data, and forranking the usage data into at least two different categories ofpotential usefulness in deriving user preference information, the rankedpotentially useful usage data stored on the client device being usagedata generated in response to user actions performed on or with theclient device, and the ranking of the usage data into the at least twodifferent categories of potential usefulness in deriving the userpreference information by the client device including performing aheuristic processing on the usage data; a transmitter for transmitting afirst set of usage data to the recommender system, the first set ofusage data being associated with the first set of recommendations; aprocessor configured to calculate a performance value of the first setof recommendations and compare the performance value to a performancereference value; a responder for responding to a trigger for providing asecond set of usage data, the second set of usage data ranked in a firstcategory of potential usefulness so that the provided usage data islimited to only usage data ranked in the first category of potentialusefulness, the usage data ranked in the first category of potentialusefulness relating to at least two user actions performed on or withthe client device, at least one of the user actions including userstoring or viewing of a content item such that the usage data ranked inthe first category of potential usefulness includes an explicitindication of user preference inferred from the heuristic processing onthe usage data relating to the at least one of the user actionsincluding the user storing or viewing of the content item; and aselector for selecting an amount of the usage data for the second set ofusage data, wherein the second set of usage data is ranked in the firstcategory of potential usefulness and is dependent upon the trigger, orhaving been specified by the recommender system, and is furtherdependent on the comparison of the calculated performance value of thefirst set of recommendations to the performance reference value; whereinthe transmitter is also for transmitting the selected second set ofusage data to the recommender system.
 13. The recommendation arrangementaccording to claim 10, wherein another of the at least two user actionsperformed on or with the client device includes a direct user rating ofa content item.
 14. A client device according to claim 12 wherein theresponder for responding to the trigger comprises a receiver forreceiving a request, from the recommender system, for the second set ofusage data and wherein the selection of the second set of usage data fortransmission is made in dependence upon criteria specified in therequest message specifying a request amount of usage data.
 15. A clientdevice according to claim 12 wherein the usage logger is operable torank the usage data based on a ranking system which aims to rank theusage data in order of its usefulness for indicating the preference ofone or more media items consumed by a user of the client device.
 16. Aclient device according to claim 12 further comprising a usage datapre-processor for pre-processing the usage data to form a set ofpreference records each of which identifies the item, and includes theindication of a user preference for that item.
 17. The client deviceaccording to claim 12 wherein another of the at least two user actionsperformed on or with the client device includes a direct user rating ofa content item.